Tragic accident involving a 3rd gen today

Horrible tragedy...RIP little ones, may God protect you and watch over you until you rejoin your parents in heaven one day.

 

I was driving in TN while looking after my high school/middle school age niece and nephew when some children ran in front of my vehicle towards a school bus.

There were three parties involved and all would have had to make an error for a tragedy to occur.

#1. the bus stopped add a crest of a hill, but had engaged it's lights before stopping. I am not sure this was an error as I don't know the bus protocol, what I do know is that not being familiar with the road they first thing I saw come over the hill in front of me was a still moving bus with flashing lights.

#2. Looking at my role in this episode, I was unfamiliar with how the bus stopped at that hour of the morning. So my lack of familiarity meant the bus caught me by surprise and I had to break immediately.

#3. The children being of a young age dashed across the road upon seeing the bus' flashing lights. A few big issues; the bus stop was a hundred feet down hill, the children were hiding under a neighborhood sign as it was raining and were not visible to approaching traffic, the children didn't see me and I didn't see them, the children ran across the road moments after they saw the bus is flashing lights but before it had stopped and before checking for additional traffic.

I am not sure what the solution is. The bus stopping at the crest means that cars from behind see it clearly, and cars coming up the hill also see it.

The bus stop location needs to be moved to the hill crest because children who see the bus but don't wait or check the traffic coming up hill could be in danger as there is not enough time between when the bus becomes visible to uphill traffic.

Scared the crap out of the bus driver the kids and me.

 

I mentioned earlier that the school bus has to stop on the side of the door on 4 lane highways so the kids don't have to cross the highway. This is true in Ohio plus the opposing traffic does NOT even have to stop either, but it is a good idea to check the laws in each state as it may be different.

 

Terrible tragedy.

So many assumptions though coming from a few here. Don’t assume the driver was on the phone. More than likely she was distracted but that doesn’t mean she was texting. I’ve seen tons of women applying makeup while driving. Seen a woman blow drying her hair before while driving. Should could of been eating something, or reading, or messing with the radio, or dropped an item, or digging through her purse, or dozed off, or 100 other things. I’m not trying to justify this for the woman, but we all have had a time or multiple times where we have taken our eyes off the road for far to long, or have done something stupid or dangerous while behind the wheel. It’s terrible for anything like this to happen, especially for 3 kids. I can’t begin to imagine the pain their family feels and will in the future. This wasn’t intentional and the driver is world of shit. Not only is she looking at a lot of jail time but she is going to have to live with the fact she killed 3 kids for the rest of her life. I’m sure the image will run through her mind the rest of her life forever. Not sure that I would be able to handle that. I couldn’t imagine dealing with the outcome from any parties involved, even the responders. Very tragic


I hope she wasn’t texting or doing anything on her phone. However if that’s what happened I mean it’s a stupid thing but Atleast probably 90% of all people under the age of 25 have or will be using devices while driving. This could happen to a lot of us here, or your children or your grandchildren ect. Today’s society has just been consumed by electronics and phones. Someday we’ll have fully automated self driving cars, but until that day, events like this are still going to happen. And as more of these kids start driving that have had tablets and phones since they were in diapers, these type of events may increase for a little bit before they start to rapidly drop off. Let’s just all try and learn some lessons from all this. Because again, we can all say we have done something behind the wheel where a tragedy like this could of happened.

 

Unfortunately, rural busses have to do this. But many drivers get out of the bus and stand in the road with a flashing stop sign in their hand and escort the kids across the street. Its not safe these days to let kids do it by themselves.

 

My prayers go out to the family and my heart is broken....

Something that I noticed is that the driver Alyssa Shepherd. Looks like she works at a Church (http://faithoutreach.cc/staff/) and is the Children's Director. If that is her and she works with children, I'm lost for words....

 

No family deserve to go thru something like this, this news made me sad and mad.
Praying for the family that they find peace some day.

 

This was a big problem in Indiana before we moved away years ago. Having spent about 30-40 years there total, and picking up the amount of Indiana history over that time, from my perspective, Indiana is a shithole, and has been for a while.

People will complain about this, there will be candlelight vigils and such.

Nothing will happen to prevent this in the future. My guess is the driver may get 5 years with 2 in prison, reduced to 364 days in custody if she plays nice - the rest on parole or supervised release (or whatever they call it). Her name has been released, along with the children, so clearly none of these people were connected to anyone important (politically or financially).

People appear to have complained to authorities about this particular stop in the past. I complained to authorities when county trash trucks ran the stop arm when we lived in said shithole state. I showed them video. The next day a sheriff's deputy was parked at the stop. I never saw a car there again, and people resumed running the stop arm. Some months later a few kids were driving reckless and knocked over the stop & street signs at that bus stop. The kids pulled down our (dead end) street, stopped at a neighbors house to drop one of their friends off, and attempted to turn around to flee, to find the road blocked as we were turning onto the same street. The deputy that showed up checked their license & registration, verified that the sign was a county sign, and filed a report. They destroyed a county sign, attempted to filee, and weren't even cited with a warning.

Just for brevity's sake, imagine I told a long story about postal workers, somebody is screwing somebody else, and two delivery vehicles (they go faster and handle better than you give them credit for) and the same dead end street that tee's into another street at a school bus stop. This is what you need to consider before taking a full-time work from home job. This is the shit you will see, and possibly capture on home security cameras.

Also, the obligatory meth lab across the street. The explosion in the garage was after we had moved away, but while we were there, a tent appeared in the yard a few times. If you see a tent in a yard, in a suburban neighborhood, and no kids are going in and out of it, it's probably a meth lab.

Indiana has a problem passing and enforcing laws that protect its' citizens. As soon as that happens it will become really clear who is "protected" and really running things. Much easier to obstruct that process and pass things like a balanced budget amendment that is really about cutting first responder retirement. Or legally changing the value of pi from 3.14 to 3.2.

PSA: Thoughts and prayers work, but only if kept at body temperature until they can be received by those they are casted at. Some very fine people (who once turned down an interview for a job after finding out it was in South Bend) have told me they have evidence that the best way to keep thoughts and prayers at body temperature is to keep them in your ass. Seriously, according to the studies they referenced, which have never been released, you can shove your thoughts and prayers up your ass and it won't cause any real pain or discomfort. There is some chance of imaginary pain or discomfort. If this is a concern, it is suggested you try material action, such as communication to an authority figure that can enact change to influence an outcome.

 

Prayers to the parents, first responders and yes, even the driver. May God be with them in their hours of need.

Back in 2002 my father and a nephew were in an accident and my nephew died. My brother and sister-in-law still struggle to this day because of it. The first five years were the worst. It was touch and go for a long long time with them.

When I got into an accident in my Nissan Frontier this past July, my wife went out and got me my Tacoma specifically because of the safety features.

 

My thoughts and prayers are with you and your bad attitude. Hope it helps.

 

Time to put phone related accidents next to DUI's.
My drive from home to work is only 8 miles and I see at least 1 phone related incident every day.

 

There are meth labs in all 50 states. Unfortunately it’s the world we live in. Every state has cities and areas that are shit holes.

Nothing wrong with thoughts and prayers. Especially from people online who aren’t in the community and can’t do anything to change the situation that occurred there. Perhaps if they lived in the town they would fight to have the school review the bus routes to make it so children don’t have to cross the road unless absolutely necessary, or have the DOT review the speed limit and route. While you can’t control peoples behavior and actions to can try and take preventive actions. I know where I live in certain areas they put up neon yellow school bus stop signs in areas where they have problems whether it be cars not stopping for buses, or a stop in a dip or around a bend where you may not see a bus or child until it’s too late. I’d much rather hear someone send condolences than someone who hasn’t a care in the world. Because there are people out there who have no feelings and don’t care about anything but themselves

 

Rage....i feel nothing but Rage regarding this story. I have 3 kids and my oldest almost got hit while walking off the bus due to a piece of shit ignoring the bus's STOP sign.

Those claiming that TSS could have prevented this are real fuckers. Systems like TSS are bandaids to the social disease that is distracted driving caused by the obsession with social media available at our finger tips 24/7.

It's very fucking simple. You're driving a 4k# missile at 65mph... WATCH THE FUCKING ROAD, NOT YOUR PHONE!!!!

 

I watched part of this while sitting in the toyota dealers waiting room getting my truck serviced.

Terrible thing, I couldnt imagine that happening to my kids.

 

Just sad. Don't have much to say other than what others have said already. Strength and prayers for the family is all I can ask and hope.

Death is never fucking easy to deal with ...EVER.

 

Some of these comments are scary as fuck. Emotional, shoot first mentality all based on assumptions.
I understand how incredibly tragic this is, but that doesn't mean you get your pitchforks out.

I wonder if the bus was equipped with an extended arm that swings out to block the opposing lane. Grew up in the suburbs when i was in elementary and my school bus had this in addition to flashing lights and the stop arm.
It was mounted to the front bumper and it would swing out 180* a long reflective arm

 

I'm not sure how fast she was going but by looking at the damage its probably too fast for TSS to be able to stop the car.

 

Edit: don't know the speed limit. got it wrong.

 

WOW speechless, I'm sorry but I don't think a Tesla could even prevented the accident at that speed.

 

70 MPH posted speed limit in a supposed SCHOOL BUS STOP ZONE??? WTF???